How to Do a Handstand Push-Up

In order to do a handstand push-up, a gymnast is going to have to be able to do a solid regular handstand. Try doing a handstand push-up against a wall with help from a gymnastics coach in this free video on gymnastics and tumbling.

Comments

Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Caroline and this is Katy, and we're here at Encore, and today we're going to teach you how to do handstand push ups. Before you do this activity, you want to make sure you stretch your wrists and your shoulders, so Katy's going to start by showing you how to stretch your wrists. And then she's going to sit on her bottom, put her hands behind her and stretch her shoulders. In this stretch, you want to get your pinkies to touch, and if you can, you scoot your bottom out as far away...Katy's pretty far to the ground. Not everybody can stretch quite this far. Very good. Come on up. All right. To do handstand push ups, you want to make sure you can do a pretty solid handstand. Katy's going to cartwheel into her handstand. Hold it at the top. You can do these against a wall, or you can do these with somebody holding you. She's going to hold here, bend her arms, and back up. Very good. And again, and back up. And come on down. Excellent! We're going to now show you it from the side, so you can see that she keeps her body really straight. Go ahead and do a handstand into it. Hold it here. You want to make sure that your back does not arch. If you have your feet against the wall, sometimes people tend to arch their back like this. This isn't keeping your weight over your shoulders. You want to keep it up tall, like this. And push up. And up, very good. And push up, and up. Very good. And finish. Excellent. It's good to have a spotter for this exercise. That is how to do a handstand push up.